Sandpiper Project January 2015 Meetings

Dear Minnesota Environment Supporter,

As you may be aware, there is a proposed crude-oil pipeline that would bring hundreds of thousands of barrels per day of fracked crude oil from North Dakota across northern Minnesota to Superior, Wisconsin, and then on to refineries outside the region. Three watersheds, the headwaters of the Mississippi, Lake Superior, and tribal rice lake lands will be especially at risk.

There are a series of public hearings across Minnesota on the “need” for this pipeline beginning next Monday Jan 5, 2015 at 2 PM at the RiverCenter in downtown ST Paul, 175 W Kellogg. Please attend if you are able, speak at the hearing and register here Talking points are available if you fill out the form. There are also Facebook pages for the six hearings – all the first full week in January (St Paul, Duluth, Crookston, St Cloud) under the titles Sandpiper (list location) Public Hearing.

Sandpiper is a project of the North Dakota Pipeline Company, a private limited partnership between Enbridge and Marathon Oil. Fracked oil is a form of extreme energy extraction, requiring a large amount of energy to drill deeply, separate the oil from the shale rock, with huge quantities of water, and chemicals pumped under high pressure deep into the ground. The fracking process also releases large amounts of natural gas (think methane) into the atmosphere. Methane is a big contributor to global climate change with an impact twenty times greater than carbon dioxide.

Friends of the Headwaters, Honor the Earth, the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, the Carleton County Land Stewards and MN350 are the primary defenders of people and the environment against damage from Sandpiper.